Sleeping Beauty
by Mister Jay
Summary: ONESHOT YAOI Bel doesn't like Squalo at all, so it's only logical that he wouldn't be attracted to Squalo, no matter how much gelato Squalo buys him. Though he'd be less inclined to hate Squalo if the jerk stopped calling him 'princess'.


A/N: Katekyo Hitman Reborn's Characters don't belong to me.

_prego_: 'please' in Italian.

_gelato:_ like ice cream, but so much better.

* * *

There was someone else in the room.

Not to say that Bel wouldn't expect anyone else to be in the room (it was, after all, not his personal suite), but that he hadn't noticed them until they were practically on top of him, looming over him like a man-shaped thunderhead, was disconcerting (to say the very least on the matter). Of course, being that the looming, man-shaped thunderhead was Squalo (and not some random Varia grunt) made it less annoying then it could have been, but his pride was rolling it's eyes inside his head, and generally acting like a really ballsy stallion. Unlike him – he had brains. Which weren't necessarily better then balls, sure, but at least they were all-purpose. Unlike balls.

"What are you doing in here?" Squalo said, giving him an unreadable look – well, here Bel was assuming that the look was unreadable because he couldn't see Squalo's face beneath the mane of silky blond hair that was dripping down Squalo's sides and onto the couch. Then Squalo's tone became decidedly (insufferably) smug. "Don't you have a room?" A pause, probably for a smirk. "One that has a bed?"

Oh, _balls_.

Bel rolled over on the couch, looking out the window and into the early sunrise (and away from Squalo's stupid blond face). The couch was far more comfortable then his bed – that, and he'd been out all night and couldn't get into his room without setting off any of the higher-level booby-traps that were place around the building's third floor (shut up, it did happen to everyone). But shark-bait didn't need to know that.

Instead of huffing away like an offended cat (which was something Squalo did, a lot), shark-bait sat down on the couch and said, pseudo baby-talk, "Aww, did I hurt little Belphegor's little fee-wings?" A sharp-toothed grin that reflected the early orange light (and would have com with Wolverine-like sound effects if he were in some sort of anime) appeared beneath the hair, making Bel happy that his discomfort was at least doing somebody good – not. "Does widdle Belphegor need his mommy to kiss it bed-der?" Squalo puckered his lips and made kissy noises. Bel had to fight back the urge to rip them off and throw them out the window.

"Fuck off, shark-bait," Bel murmured sleepily, waving a hand dismissively at Squalo. "I'm sleeping here."

"Yes, your highness," Squalo replied easily, grinning that annoying bloodthirsty grin.

"Damn straight," Bel countered soundly, rolling onto his front and closing his eyes. He did not, however, find restless sleep, as Squalo didn't get off the couch. So after a few moments of silence, Bel turned around and glared at the smiling Varia. He blinked, and said, "bad dog." He pointed at the floor.

Squalo raised one fine blond eyebrow – Bel could just barely make out the motion under the long hair.

"Dogs aren't allowed on the couch," he elaborated. Then, halfheartedly (and just because he could), Bel poked Squalo in the back with his foot. "That means you, shark-bait."

"Of course, your highness," said Squalo, standing. Bel sighed contently as Squalo's footsteps disappeared into the morning silence.

Only to come back with a vengeance thirty seconds later. "Okay, Sleeping Beauty, you awake yet?" shark-bait asked impatiently. He turned on the TV, leaving Bel to cover his head with a pillow in order to prevent being assaulted by the insanely loud morning news. "Don't you want to hear about Paris Hilton, Princess?" Squalo cackled, turning the TV up to full volume.

"Shut up!" Bel yelped into the couch. "Don't make me come over there!"

"Oh, I'm so scared," Squalo muttered sarcastically, lazily flipping channels. "What're you going to do, Disney me to death?"

Seconds later Bel was sitting up, flinging a pillow at Squalo's smirk, his face bright red. "I _said _shut up!" he barked. "I don't want to hear about fucking Disney! And turn off the fucking TV! It's too goddamn early," he concluded, flinging himself back onto his collection of fluffy pillows.

"Okay, Princess, do you want some coffee?" Squalo offered, standing, "or shall I just get the smelling salts?"

Another pillow almost hit him on his way out the door. "Don't fucking call me Princess! And that coffee better come with a sugar bowl!"

The door clicked quietly shut behind Squalo, and Bel took the blissfully shark-bait free time to roll over onto his stomach once again and get at least three good minutes of shut eye.

-

… three minutes that went buy in the blink of an eye. Instantaneously, Bel found himself being roughly shaken into consciousness, the smell of caffeine and sugar smoothing his return to the waking world. Eyes still closed against the hideous light of day, he groped blindly for the coffee cup. Squalo was probably holding it just out of his reach, the bastard.

"Sleeping Beauty wants her coffee?" Squalo crooned sickeningly, as though he was about to kill Bel instead of just get him of the couch. "I always thought that Sleeping Beauty needed a kiss from Prince Charming, not caffeine and sugar."

"It's true love's first kiss," Bel corrected grudgingly, "And I _am_ fucking Prince Charming, so give me the coffee!"

Squalo only laughed harder. "Does that make you a virgin, Princess?" he asked, causing Bel to turn even redder. "Maybe you shouldn't use such foul language, you highness, and then you'd find a man willing to screw you into next week."

By this point, Bel's face was the color of something really red (he wanted to say blood, but really that would be too obvious, even for him). He reached out again. "Gimme the coffee, shark-bait, or I will make you bleed so much your _mother_ will need an operation."

Squalo didn't stop laughing, though, as he said, "Just stop being cranky and wake up, Princess." Then Bel could feel Squalo's hot breath on his face (or what he assumed to be Squalo's, at any rate) and fire run through his body as Squalo's lips touched his.

A second later, however, Bel was certain he'd dreamed that up, because Squalo was sitting in the armchair across from the TV, his own coffee mug in hand, watching the screen with a blank (well, smug, but Squalo always looked smug, so it never counted unless he isaid/i something smug) expression. Bel shook the remnants of sleep from his brain and took the mug on the table (ironically pink, with the words "a royal pain in your ass" printed onto it), added the entire contents of the sugar bowl to his coffee, and drank it. Then, determined to ignore Squalo, he faced the TV, letting it pull him into a world of flashing pixels.

Maybe ten minutes later, someone (Bel had no idea who; neither had he had any idea that there were enough people in the Varia that he wouldn't recognize one of them) entered the room, throwing a file onto the coffee table with an explanation of "the boss has a job for you," which wasn't strictly true since when the boss had a job for someone personally, he told them personally, and otherwise a job was passed around until someone bored enough actually got of their ass and did it.

Bel watched out of the corner of his eye as Squalo considered the file for a minute before moving to pick it up. The other Varia's eyes glowed with bloodlust as he finally reached forward for the folder. He began to paw through it, probably aware that Bel was watching him. His eyes widened comically every time he flipped to a new page, and he murmured softly, obviously trying to attract Bel's attention (as though he wasn't sure he already had it completely).

Not a minute later, he stood and made for the door. "You coming?" he asked Bel, not bothering to turn around. Draining the last of his mug, Bel bolted from the couch and scrambled (gracefully) after Squalo.

"Who's the target?" he asked, trotting down the halls to keep up with the other Varia's long stride. Squalo handed him the file.

"Strange request," he told Bel even as the shorter man was opening up the folder to look for himself. "The boss man wants some guy done in publicly. As in, you know, not being killed while he's sleeping." Squalo scowled and added, "this is going to be ridiculously time-consuming. You in?"

Bel ignored the pathetic hopefulness in Squalo's voice and led the way out of the Varia headquarters. "I want gelato," he said. "You're buying."

-

They took Squalo's pricey sports car to a café on Rue de la Forte. They sat under a sun umbrella, Squalo sipping espresso with a sour expression and Bel happily (almost psychotically so) licking away at his gelato (chocolate, thx.). Eventually, Squalo's impatient foot-tapping became too much for Bel, who had to give in and ask "what do you want, motherfucker?", which gave Squalo another cause to smirk. "Edward Riddell, thirty-one, environmentalist and US Senator who's on his way to getting majority support for a Bill that will close down a Mafia branch's business dealings in America."

"How concise," Bel replied condescendingly. "How long did you have to think about it to get it to fit altogether in one pretty sentence?"

Squalo scowled. "Well, you're definitely awake," he commented with feigned airiness. He returned to the file, adding; "I'm guessing this is going to be a warning against anyone else who has ideas about fucking with the Mafia."

Bel leaned over the table and patted the top of Squalo's head, telling him, "What a smart boy. Would you like a cookie?"

Squalo growled and swatted at Bel's hand. He motioned over the waiter and took out his rage on the unsuspecting girl instead, ordering another espresso. When the girl left, shaking, Squalo asked, "So, if you were an American Senator visiting Rome, where would you go?"

Bel shrugged, and that was how he found himself dragged to every single tourist spot in Rome over the next three days, none of which held the elusive American Senator. The only good part was that whenever he started to whine, Squalo bought him gelato, and, as everybody knows, gelato cures everything.

Well, except boredom. "The guy's not here! Can we just go?" He pouted (not that he'd admit it) and said sadly, "my gelato's melting, Squalo! It's too damn hot for this fucking wild goose chase." They had run out of famous spot already, and had resorted to quaint little parks (which Bel didn't mind – not because the sunlight made the sweat on Squalo's skin glisten wetly, but because he didn't enjoy being cooped up inside. Honestly.) Today they were going down Rue St Marie, stopping every so often so Squalo could get a good look at his surroundings and so Bel could get a good look at the way the sinuous muscles moved and twisted under the skin of Squalo's neck.

Or not.

Squalo ignored him. His eyes continued to rapidly scan the park, looking for some unseen something that was obviously more interesting then Bel's cute pouting face. Which was good, because Bel wasn't pouting (but if he was, it would've been cuter than whatever it was that Squalo was looking at).

Squalo poked him in the ribs. "Stop pouting. Do you see that man?" he asked, his finger leading Bel's eyes to a man in a tee-shirt and jeans talking into a call phone. There was a lump in his back pocket that was his wallet and a lump in his front pocket that was probably a handgun. Bel nodded. "Does he look like a bodyguard?"

Well, _duh_. Bel repeated this though aloud, earning a scowl from Squalo.

"Stay right here," Squalo ordered imperiously. He walked up to the man beside the bodyguard, a handsome (if a bit plain) looking brown-haired man who was probably the target … _oh_.

_Thunk_ went the cogs in Bel's brain, probably several days later then they should have. Squalo had probably following the guy for days and Bel, the genius of the Varia hadn't noticed. Then again, he staring at Squalo's multitude of facial expressions and watching Squalo move with all the grace of a panther and all the attractiveness of an unlimited credit card might have had something to do with that.

Not that he found Squalo attractive.

Not that any nonexistent attraction to Squalo would have been provoked by Squalo kissing him and calling him Sleeping Beauty.

Don't be stupid.

-

It would've been confusing to a normal person: one second Squalo was standing in front of Riddell, pointing at his wrist and looking puzzled. The next second there was a gaping hole in Riddell's stomach and Squalo was yelping as panicked tourists tried to scream and run away without loosing any of their belongings.

To Bel, it was obvious. Squalo had used the question to lure Riddell into position and the gesture to set up some sort of device that launched, as far as Bel could tell, some sort of large bullet that dissolved on contact so as to not leave any traces. He hadn't seen that particular weapon before, but he knew Mammon had several new designs he was unfairly ferreting away from everybody and highly suspected the Arcobaleno had lent it to Squalo for an outrageous price. But whatever the price might have been, the machine worked amazingly well.

Squalo used the pandemonium as an opportunity to grab Bel by the wrist and pull him into the fancy sports car. He took off at top speed, leaving Riddell's corpse in his dusty wake.

"Where are we going?" Bel asked, looking back at the screaming horde that had been, not seconds before, a serene, picturesque Italian park.

"Somewhere we won't look suspicious," Squalo replied.

This was, of course, the reason they drove back to the café Squalo so enjoy on the Rue de la Forte to ask the waitress Squalo had traumatized for two espressos and a coke, _prego_.

-

Three weeks later, Bel was back on the couch, sleeping. He figured he'd earned it after three long weeks demonstrating his impressive Squalo-avoiding skills. In this case however, his celebration was all for naught.

"What'cha doin'?" Lussuria asked, leaning over the back of the couch.

"Plotting to murder Squalo in his sleep," Bel replied quietly, not opening his eyes and thus avoiding have to look at Lussuria's face.

"Why?" Lussuria asked, dragging the word out unnecessarily.

"Because you are an annoying faggot."

The power of Lussuria's pout would have made a small puppy kills itself out of guilt. Luckily for Bel, his eyes were shut. "That's not nice."

Bel squinted up at Lussuria. "Your face isn't nice. What do you want?"

Lussuria seemed to fill with a sense of self-worth as he proclaimed, "I have decided that tonight, the Varia shall go out to dine amongst the peons. Does that suit your majesty?"

"No. Go away."

Lussuria picked Bel up in a fireman's carry, and dragged the sleeping prince, kicking and screaming, to go meet with Mammon, Levi and Squalo at the restaurant.

-

"Isn't this nice!" Lussuria declared as they all sat around the small table in uncomfortable iron chairs.

"Like a fork in your eye," said Mammon. Levi nodded and glared at a waiter that got too close to them.

Lussuria pouted. A baby looked directly at him and began to cry. He said, "We don't have enough activities together! I thought we were friends."

"Wherever did you get that idea?" asked Squalo idly, using his fork to fling packets of sugar at the teenagers making out on the Rue below them.

Mammon looked over the edge. "Lucky shot. I can do better."

Squalo sneered. "Could not."

Mammon immediately grabbed Squalo's fork ("Get your own weapon!") and threw it over the edge of the terrace. Screaming from below ensued.

Throughout this exchange Bel kept his mouth shut and sulked. Lussuria had tried several times to involve his 'friends' in a discussion, but he had failed, and Bel was left to watch Mammon and Squalo compete to cause the most damage. So far neither of them had manage to hit the couple making out, but Mammon had managed to bruise their waiter's shin.

Whatever Bel was thinking about, however, wasn't the point; the point was that he wasn't thinking about Squalo, and how damn attractive he was. No, wait, shit.

"Bel?" asked Lussuria. "You have this look on your face. Do you need to go to the bathroom?"

Bel gave him a cold look. "A prince does not need to go to the bathroom."

"No, a prince needs to take a crap," said Levi, crassly. Bel glared at every one of the table's occupants in turn. How dare they laugh at a prince!

"Do you need someone to escort you to the bathroom, prince?" Mammon asked.

Squalo heaved him to his feet. "Come on, prince, was can't have you wetting your nappy at the table now can we?"

Mammon, Lussuria and Levi were all in hysterics (or at least, their sotic Varia equivalent of hysterics). Bel was about to go back to the table and beat them around the head when Squalo whispered to him, "if you come with me, princess, I might just have a present for you."

His hands started shaking, and suddenly the patio was hot and the bathroom was several hundred light-years way too far away.

Not appearing to be in much of a hurry, Squalo led Bel slowly to the bathroom. Anticipation roiled in Bel's stomach, and he felt hot all over. This, from Bel's experience, wasn't normally what one felt when being dragged to the bathroom. He wasn't even sure why Squalo was dragging him to the restaurant's bathroom (though he knew he should've) when their waiter would probably be bringing food back to their table any minute now. He hoped Levi wouldn't steal any of his linguini – he hadn't been to this restaurant in weeks, and their linguini was (in his opinion) the best in all of Italy.

The bathroom was a one room affair, and had the merest of conveniences. It was obviously not used frequently as the sink had fallen apart and the staff cleaning record read that it had been last maintained three years earlier. A sign on the back of the door read that there was a better bathroom on the main floor, please redirect your search to there.

There was a click as the tumbler lock on the bathroom door fell into place, and then Bel was manhandled forcefully onto Squalo's lap. The other Varia was sitting on the (thankfully lidded) clean porcelain toilet, a wicked leer on his face and a strange, straining bulge in his – oh. _Oh_.

Well Bel himself had never actually been hard before, he was well aware of the symptoms of arousal, and of any possible reproductive processes that could be performed between two persons (usually, the textbooks added snidely, a man and a woman). That he'd never been able to 'get any' was a by-product of his psychosis and preoccupation with making things bleed themselves dry, or so he'd assumed. He'd never considered men, though he should have – men enjoyed blood and killing things more, or at least pretended they did due to all the testosterone in their systems. And he'd never thought about taking up with one of the Varia, because on the first day his boss had told him something to the effect of 'mixing sex with your job is a big no-no that will get you fucking killed' and Bel had never really been interested in sex with anyone anyway, woman, man or Varia regardless, except maybe Squalo, but that was only because Squalo looked at him funny and had really nice skin and was the only person who'd ever kissed him, like that –

Oh. Like _that_.

Bel moaned needily into Squalo's mouth, clinging to Squalo's shirt as the other man's hands used the small of his back to pull him flush against Squalo's chest and hips and groin. And then – friction, used to stimulate nerve endings and send massages to his brain that had heat pooling in his groin, slow and thick. His breath came in short pants, and he couldn't get enough air into his lungs with Squalo using his tongue to fuck his mouth like that but fucking hell it was worth it to be able to feel the heat from the other man's body (and hardening cock), feel strong confident hands touching him all over in a new and intimate way he's not entirely adverse to.

Suddenly there was no heat. Bel was still well within Squalo's personal bubble, but he wasn't being touched either. He felt breath on his ear. "Why have you been avoiding me?"

Bel gave him a reproachful look. "I have not. A prince would not need to stoop so low."

But you have. And I want to know why."

Bel ignored him. He made to get up, but Squalo's arms locked around him like a vice, or a straitjacket.

"Are you going to tell me?"

"No."

"Then we are going to sit here until you do."

They stared at each other. Squalo's eyes were dark and his eyelids had half-fallen over his eyes, as though he was about to fall asleep. Everywhere his skin touched Bel's felt unbearably hot. There might've been an inch of space between them, but it wasn't noticeable with all the heat.

Not that it was getting to Bel. Nothing gets to a prince.

-

Finally (ie, around thirty seconds later), Bel told him. And Squalo laughed for maybe three minutes, and then ruffled Bel's hair fondly and said, "idiot," fondly, the way you say it to a particularly amusing child and if Bel could have picked one this out of all the proceedings that had pissed him off most, it had to have been that. But it didn't matter for more than a minute (in which Squalo had ripped off all their clothing and shoved Bel against the wall and his tongue in Bel's mouth), anyway.

"You're not doing it right," Bel told Squalo, who was supporting Bel's hips with large, long-fingered hands and grunting as he tried to shift Bel's weight out of said hands.

"Will you shut up?" Squalo scowled as whatever it is he was trying to get at, and shifted again.

Bel yelped. "Not until you start doing things right. Just tell me what you're trying to do."

"Like you can do any better!"

Bel sneered. "Of course I can," he said logically, "I'm a prince."

"Well, _prince_, next time you can do something right by _shutting the fuck up_ now."

Bel paused, and looked at Squalo's frustrated, desperate face. "That barely makes sense. Talk to me again when you're coherent."

"I'm coherent now," Squalo growled, and suddenly (Bel had very little idea of how it had happened), they were having sex.

"Oh, _fuck_."

"Yes, your highness," Squalo said.

-

Ten minutes later, Squalo and Bel were back at the table and their food still hadn't arrived. Squalo was sending him apologetic smug looks every time he shifted uncomfortably in his seat, and Marmon and Lussuria and even Levi (for fuck's sake) were giving him knowing looks – though each with varying degrees of disgust.

"This was a waste of time," Bel said, bending his cheap aluminum alloy cutlery into a u-shape.

Squalo gave him an unreadable look. "Really," he said, and Bel had no idea what to make of that. So he said,

"Well, maybe not."

Squalo leaned over and kissed him. The maitre d' ran over and asked them to leave. Later, Lussuria said it was a very successful moment of bonding for the team, and Mammon asked him if he maybe meant _bondage_. And even later, Squalo snuck into his room, fucked him so hard he forgot his name (both their names, actually) and said, "good night, sleeping beauty," and Bel thought that the only reason he hadn't killed Squalo was because he was tired, and not because of the warm fluttery feeling in his stomach.

Really. Don't be stupid.


End file.
